MAX Plugins.de News Archive

Archived Plugin News  –  May 2021
 

Plugin Update: Import / Export

Changes for v3.7 are:
- You can now use light probes to greatly raise the realism and vibe of your scenes
- Adds a puzzle to update light probes, to re-render reflection cube maps if the scene is updated
- New clipping planes allow you to interactively cut a model to show what is inside
- You can now create Android and iOS mobile applications from your Verge3D scenes and puzzles
- Adds several HTML puzzle on event options to facilitate mobile development
- You can now create native desktop applications using the mobile converter tool mentioned above
- This update introduces basic support for Arnold renderer's nodes in 3ds Max
- Implements two dozen of Arnold's Math nodes in Verge3D
- Verge3D is now compatible with 3ds Max 2022
- Adds a puzzle for enabling wireframe rendering
- You can now merge the geometry of a specified group of meshes to improve rendering performance
- The physics module now supports the so-called continuous collision detection (CCD) technique
- Data URI can now be used as input for the puzzles 'read JSON' and 'read CSV'
- The 'download file' puzzle can now use lists, dictionaries or text as input
- The 'export to gltf' puzzle now returns data in url-encoded JSON format
- The Blank Scene template was added to the menu for creating new apps
- The option 'Hide stock applications' is now available in the App Manager settings
- The App Manager's Network Directory can now display more than 1000 files
- The puzzle 'get style' lets you retrieve a CSS property of an HTML element
- New puzzles 'get playback time' and 'set playback time' can be used for sounds, videos or MIDIs
- Fixes an error printed in the browser console when using the MIDI format
- Adds a new puzzle to the HTML category: remove html elem
- You can now select mouse buttons in the 'when dragged over' puzzle
- The JavaScript code generated by the Puzzles Editor is now more compact
- The FPS counter displayed in the Puzzles Editor has been improved
- Fixes some crashes related to the Physics puzzles
- The right-click menu for some puzzles now has an option to create the associated puzzle
- The drag puzzles now work in AR mode
- The puzzle 'feature available' can now detect if the user is using Do Not Track mode
- The puzzle 'export gltf' now supports animations through the option export anims
- The puzzle 'export gltf' now works more robustly
- Adds a new forum specifically for Verge3D plugins to search for, discuss or advertise plugins
- Shadows can now be used together with screen-space reflection/refraction
- The FAQ pages of the User Manual were updated and supplemented with new info
- Updates the WordPress plugin to indicate the compatibility with the newest versions of this CMS
- Optimizes export with LZMA compression so the 3D editor no longer freezes while compressing
- Optimizes the loading of the documentation pages
- Fixes some issues with search
- Fixes an App Manager crash if the application folder has a folder ending with .js / .css / .html
- App Manager now ignores npm's node_modules directory, improving performance when using npm
- Fixes a performance issue with outlining
- Fixes a minor issue with the load scene puzzle
- Fixes a bug with incorrect gamma applied to the color of the outlining effect
- Fixes WebGL 1.0 not working with supersampling anti-aliasing
- Fixes a draw line puzzle regression
- The feature for uploading zip archives to Verge3D Network now actually deflates the files
- Fixes the bug with duplicate procedure puzzles
- Fixes the internal engine-specific material MeshShadowMaterial accessible via JavaScript API
- The HTML puzzle bind element now works correctly when the camera looks in the opposite direction
- Fixes some issues with Internet Explorer 11
- Wrap modes and texture encoding settings now work for video textures
- The App Manager now properly handles files that have names starting with special symbols

Verge3D is available for Max 2018 to 2022 and costs $290. A demo version is available here.


New Plugin: Utilities

This commercial MAXScript can move points and objects to a surface very quickly. It is ideal for massive jobs with large amounts of points or objects.

Fast Move to Surface is available for Max 2016 to 2022 and costs €10.


Plugin Update: Modelling

Changes for v2.5 are:
- Adds a minimalist UI with many types of new icons
- Adds automatic layout controls in rows and columns when user resizes the UI
- Adds automatic change of UI colors based on custom UI scheme
- Adds a start/stop action to the radial menu
- Adds cut multiple objects based on selection
- Adds multiple draw shapes operations on viewport
- Adds new tools
- Adds help documentation
- Adds new world grid snap interaction
- Adds new mirror drawing shapes in local / world space 2D axis and visible in viewport
- Replaces the tools sub rollout with new tools and viewport interaction
- Replaces drawing with a more simplified interaction and fewer shortcuts
- Removes viewport drawing with icons and text shortcuts

FormCutter is available for Max 2017 to 2022 and costs $50. All previous FormCutter customers get a 70% discount when upgrading.


Plugin Update: Lighting

Changes for Drop 3 are:
- Adds a motion blur filter to provide a linear motion blur effect
- The Cinema 4D connection now uses a new API for a far more responsive lighting experience
- When moving lights on canvas the HDR Light Studio Render View now updates in real-time
- The Area Light specific controls have been moved and grouped next to the Area Light check box
- Adds a new Spread property which controls the spread/directional setting on an area light
- The Max Samples setting is now a slider from 0 to 160
- Adds a new Box Gradient Light for creating a white light with highly controllable soft edges
- The help links have been improved, with the main Help linking to the online docs

HDR Light Studio is available for Max 2019 to 2021 and costs €1195. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Updates: The first recompiles for Max 2022

I have finally managed to recompile a few plugins for Max 2022. If anything doesn't work as expected, let me know and I'll see if I can fix it.

Chris Johnson / David Baker
- CoolPicker v2.3.3

BlurBeta
- BlurBeta plugins pack for Max 2022

Andrew Reid
- EdgeMap v1.01
- ZDeSat v1.01
- ZTint v1.04

Daniel Santana
- AdvanceNoise Material v1.2.9

Andrei Zmievski
- Area v1.0

Neil Hazzard / Adam Felt
- Interface:PhysiqueOps v3.0

Autodesk, Inc.
- Physique2Skin Utility v1.0

As soon as I get a chance, I'll try to get the rest of them done. The changes this release are taking a lot longer than the past few releases. Big thanks as always go to Larry Minton for helping me out whenever I had a problem!

Edit 21.05.2021: I updated the link for IPhysique, it was pointing to the wrong folder.


Plugin Update: Utilities

Changes for v1.246 are:
- Adds automatic layer localization for Scene XRef's
- You can now delete passgroups with all of their passes
- Adds a right-click menu to Visibility Pmodifier Selection Sets
- Fixes a crash from v1.239 when changing a pmodifier name

renderStacks is available for Max 2015 to 2022 and costs $59.99 per year. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Particles

Changes for v0.16119 beta are:
- Adds volume culling options to the tyCache object
- Adds a filter rollout to the Spline Paths operator
- Fixes a regression that caused various raycast-dependent functions to perform much slower
- Various operators are much faster now when working with many particles
- Fixes the real-world gravity value in the Forces operator being twice as strong as it should be
- Fixes the PhysX Bind operator target bindings mode from crashing with too many event particles
- Fixes the tyPush modifier from giving strange results depending on smoothing groups
- Improves the efficiency of custom property data structures
- Fixes an issue where tyLooper MXS access was bugged
- Fixes the Weld operator from triggering a crash if particle pivots were centered afterwards
- Fixes an issue where Birth Flow/Flow Update were not reading instance materials from tyCaches
- Fixes a memory leak where VDB meshes weren't being properly cleared when a simulation was reset
- Fixes tyPreview from generating a MAXScript Listener error when in two-lights mode
- The subframe interpolation of per-frame actors/cloths in a tyCache now works correctly


Plugin Update: Utilities

Changes for v1.00.00 are:
- Re-save Max files and Convert to Proxy now check for existing files
- Re-save Max files and Convert to Proxy now checks / creates output folders
- Replaces Max and Proxy output path fields with Editable ComboBoxes
- Adds support for drag and drop to the Max and Proxy output path fields
- Adds an option to batch process in the same Max instance
- Adds an option to move all objects to one layer and delete other layers on re-saving Max files
- Fixes prefix/suffix support when re-saving Max files
- Disable / enable possible options depending on Save MAXtoMAT and MATtoMAX
- Fixes support for the newer version of FStorm converter
- Fixes a bug with saving gamma settings when re-saving Max files
- Rename/Copy files can now use the $scene tag to rename by multiple scene names
- Rename/Copy files can now ignore Case with the Regex Extension
- Rename/Copy files now highlights items in red if it's not possible to proceed
- Fixes save settings: Remove first and Remove last
- UI has new custom controls (EditText, Spinner, ComboBox, ProgressBar)
- Adds an arrow to the UI to show the sorted column and sort order
- Changes the column style for the darker theme
- Adds a row height option to the UI settings (in addition to font height)
- Fixes a bug with keeping asset list selection after Resize, Convert, Rename/Copy etc.
- Fixes a bug when searching for more than 1000 Max files
- Fixes a bug in multithreaded AutoRelink where it still crashed during long searches
- Fixes the checkbox 'SubDirs' in Autorelink
- Fixes sorting by asset path column in the assets list
- Adds the possibility to deactivate and move a license to a new workstation
- Adds a way to automatically activate licenses on first start without user interaction

Library Track and Relink is available for Max 2010 to 2022 and costs $18. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Utilities

Changes for v3.14.53 are:
- Adds the ability to Find & Replace part of paths in batch mode ('Batch Render&Relink')
- Adds the ability to export any type of proxy files to other formats
- Fixes an issue with managing material categories in some cases
- Fixes an issue with reading/writing/applying some settings
- Fixes an issue with grouping some models on merging
- Fixes an issue with detecting the correct bounding box for some models on rendering
- Fixes an issue with changing the interface in version 3.14.32

Project Manager is available for Max 2014 to 2022 and costs $60. A demo version is available here.


New Plugin: Utilities

IFL Turbo delivers super-charged viewport Image File List (IFL) playback. Performance is generally 3-8x faster than MAX's native playback, particularly for high resolution images or files residing on network drives. The plugin works on IFL files containing any frame sequence (jpg, png, etc) and caches the frames in RAM for fast (realtime) playback. The images can be optionally resized to reduce memory footprint and further improved performance. The plugin is a drop in replacement for the existing IFL handler provided within MAX. Files from or sent to other computers with IFL sequences will work as before (albeit without the advantage of improved performance).

IFL Turbo is available for Max 2020 to 2022 and costs $50. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Renderers

Changes for v0.9.0213-beta are:
- Adds support for path tracing
- Adds support for path hybrid back-forward
- Adds support for max light bounce options
- Adds support for shadow catcher
- Adds support for shadow transparency
- Adds support for clamping and max brightness
- Adds a message during kernels compile time
- Improves support for caustics
- Improves support for non-Latin languages
- Adds new sample scenes for caustics and glass
- Fixes metal, carpaint and the carpaint preset
- Fixes the first line of render output always being black
- Fixes missing common materials options
- Fixes hidden instance objects from rendering anyway
- Fixes the default HDRI gamma
- Fixes HDRI's in render being differently rotated as in the viewport
- Many other bug fixes


New Plugin: Modelling

Universal Customizer is a commercial MAXScript that allows you to deform any mesh by using parameters, making it useful for easily customizing repetitive objects in your scene. Basically, your mesh gets converted into a primitive object, however this script doesn't change the number of vertices in your mesh, it only changes the existing vertices position. You can create spinner controls, link them to selected groups of vertices and link them to an action type (Move, Scale, Rotate).

One control can manage multiple groups of vertices at the same time, and a vertex can belong to multiple groups of vertices. Once an object type is configured, its data is stored in an external file (.ucf) and it's possible to edit it. An object type is defined by its name and its number of vertices, and the script works with both editable_Mesh and editable_Poly objects.

Universal Customizer is available for Max 2016 to 2022 and costs $25. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Particles

Changes for v0.16117 beta are:
- Adds a Bounds Fracture operator to slice particles along their longest local bounding box axis
- Adds the ability in the Export Particles operator to manually reseed operators with a set value
- Adds a tySeedIndex symbol to the Export Particles path parser
- Adds a tyFlowName symbol to the Export Particles path parser
- docs.tyflow.com and forum.tyflow.com have both been switched to https
- Fixes an issue where tyCarve smoothing groups would be all messed up
- Fixes PhysX bind deformations from being disabled if PhysX bind breaking was disabled
- Fixes a PhysX issue related to how convex hulls were cooked
- Fixes divide operations in the VDB Modify operator sometimes crashinh during divide-by-zero
- Fixes the Display operator single channel mapping display mode from displaying flipped UVWs


Plugin Update: Utilities

Changes for v1.33.00 are:
- Adds support for VRay Bitmap (V-Ray 5)
- Adds support for RedShift RS_Bitmap
- Adds support for Octane RGB_Image
- Adds support for Arnold Image
- Adds settings to customize listview font and colors (dark and light theme)
- Moves set VRayHDRI/VRayBitmap and Arnold Image Color Space moved to main UI
- Adds new custom controls (EditText, Spinner, ComboBox)
- Adds an arrow to show sorted column and sort order
- Changes the columns style for the darker theme
- Adds a row height option to the settings (in addition to font height)

Gamma Organizer is available for Max 2014 to 2022 and costs $6. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Utilities

Changes for v13.15 are:
- Fixes the viewer sometimes failing to display the scene (standalone)
- Adds the missing Blender and GLTF/GLB formats (standalone and command line)
- Fixes a crash when entering the serial number
- Fixes a crash when opening the serial number input
- Adds access to the help in the 3ds Max plugin
- Adds access to the help in the Maya plugin
- Obj files are now exported using UTF8 characters set by default on Windows

Polygon Cruncher is available for Max 2009 to 2022 and costs $129. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Utilities

Changes for v1.74.00 are:
- Fixes Specify Path fields to allow copy/paste or drag/drop
- Fixes Autorelink to prevent crashes in large scenes
- Fixes license activation issues
- Fixes an issue with slow copy / resize / repath assets

Bitmap Tracking/Resizing is available for Max 2009 to 2022 and costs $18. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Utilities

Changes for v1.5 are:
- Adds hotspots management and export
- Adds an improved auto-updater
- Some panels now have mre detailed information
- Relative movement is now set by default
- Adds support for Max 2022
- Adds a hotspots creation plugin inside Max
- Adds a hotspots creation addon inside Blender
- Adds a hotspots creation plugin inside Unreal Engine
- Fixes minor license issues when not running as admin
- Fixes Blender issues with versions newer than 2.90 and Cycles

MOTIVA Layama is available for Max 2014 to 2022 and costs €180.


Plugin Update: Utilities

Changes for v3.9992 are:
- Adds an option to switch rgb color space to ACEScg or sRGB (V-Ray 5+)
- Improves the installer to fix an error when running the installer a second time

V-RayMtl Converter is available for Max 2013 to 2022 and costs $30.